Spanish and English Text Comprehension in a Dual-language Kindergarten

Maren Aukerman

Despite indications that text comprehension poses an enormous challenge to many English-language learners, virtually no research has compared young children’s processes of text comprehension in the first and second language to see whether and how these might differ. This year-long study examines similarities and differences in children’s approaches to first- and second-language comprehension of picture-book readalouds in a dual-language (Spanish/English) kindergarten. Specifically, I ask: How do children rely on textual resources (e.g., illustrations) and classroom dialogue (e.g., peer talk) to comprehend first- and second-language picture-book readalouds? What do children’s understandings of first- and second-language readalouds look like at the start of school, and how might these become more standard across time? Using grounded theory and discourse analysis, I will analyze video data of 30 interactive readaloud conversations in each language, as well as follow-up retellings and “pretend readings” of these same texts by focal students representing various initial levels of proficiency in the two languages. By shedding light on what children do differently to comprehend first- and second-language text during everyday classroom interactions, this study will contribute to our theoretical grasp of second-language text comprehension and will inform how teachers organize reading instruction to better teach English-language learners.

About Maren Aukerman

Maren Aukerman began her career in education as a bilingual teacher in Phoenix. In 2004, she received her Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Education in Language, Literacy and Culture. Aukerman’s research focuses on the relationship between talk and learning, both among child readers and their teachers. She has investigated how children and adolescents become differently accountable to each other and to the text when the teacher deliberately steps away from a position of primary textual authority, and she has explored what those findings might mean for teachers in professional development settings. She is particularly interested in how teachers think about and engage with children’s non-standard interpretations of text. Dr. Aukerman’s additional areas of inquiry include sociocultural conceptualizations of reading comprehension; how second-language learners make sense of text through classroom dialogue; the affordances of various genres, including content area texts, for shared textual inquiry by child and adolescent readers; and documenting change over time in children’s participation in classroom talk about text. Currently at the University of Pennsylvania, Aukerman has accepted a position as assistant professor at Stanford University School of Education, to begin in the 2008-2009 school year.